


All the Times I Never Let You Down

by StarStruckMadness



Category: Smallville
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Episode Fix-it, Episode Related, Episode: s04e11 Unsafe, Fix-It, Love Confessions, M/M, Revelations and realizations
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-14
Updated: 2019-02-14
Packaged: 2019-10-28 13:12:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,462
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17788049
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StarStruckMadness/pseuds/StarStruckMadness
Summary: When Clark says to his mom that "a girl would have to be crazy to get into a relationship with me", she gives him a look and suggests he look at a different certifiably insane person in his general vicinity. Too bad she hadn't really meant that Clark should turn to Alicia. After a lot of talking things turn out alright eventually.





	All the Times I Never Let You Down

**Author's Note:**

> In episode 11 of season 4 Unsafe Clark is at the Talon trying to work on his homework amidst a ridiculous amount of people and obscene levels of noise, when two girls sit at his table, at least one of them obviously interested in him. They chat with him and try to get him to go to a party. All through this conversations Clark (at least to me) seems rather uncomfortable. And when he goes to talk to his mom about his girl-related problems and says that "a girl would have to be crazy to get into a relationship with me”, Martha gives him a look that my Clex-addled mind interpreted very freely and very deliberately in a clexy fashion. From there it's a roller coaster.

Damn, trigonometry was a bitch! And the noise level at the Talon didn’t really make figuring out the problems any easier. Maybe he should have gone back home and tried to finish his homework in his loft. But it was already late and he’d promised his mom that he’d wait for her shift to end.

Though, apparently his suffering didn’t want to end today. Sheesh, that girl’s top was cut way too low! Clark felt uncomfortable even being turned in her direction. When she and her friend sat down at Clark’s table he had to physically restrain himself from wincing. He wasn’t in the mood for small talk now, and especially not with girls whose names he couldn’t even remember. Hell, he didn’t even know where they knew him from. Did they sit behind him in art class? Was the brunette the one from his science class?

“Hey, Clark. Whatcha doin'?” Was this Hayley? The girl his team mate Josh used to date?

“Hey, um, I'm just trying to figure out some of this trig homework.” Clark could hear the discomfort in his own voice.

“What for? Don't you already have a scholarship to Met U?” And she really had to go and keep talking to him. Didn’t she see his scrunched up face? He knew it had to be, what with that sudden onslaught of ‘flight instinct’ overwhelming him.

“Yes, for football.” Clark forced a smile. “But they're still gonna be looking at my final GPA.”

“Well, when you're done playing with your protractor, there's a party over at Katie's house. Her parents have a hot tub.”

The brunette girl had picked up aforementioned protractor and was twirling it in her right hand. “Really?” His parents had raised him to be too polite for his own good. Instead of cutting the conversation short, he kept indulging the girls. 

“Yeah”, she said and finally put his protractor back on the table before him.

“Thanks, but I still got a lot of work to do.” In the hopes of finally getting them to leave him alone, he hunched over his work and looked at it in feigned concentration.

“Okay.” Brunette girl’s disappointment was evident in her tone. Still, she was relentless: “Well, why don't you drop by later if you finish?” He couldn’t bring himself to do much more than nod and smile. But that seemed to be enough. Finally, finally, they left. He needed to get a refill of coffee before he could go back to his trigonometry homework. 

Approaching the bar, he saw the look on his mom’s face and immediately knew what was coming.

“She was cute”, she said with a knowing smile. Clark sighed. Not this again.

“Which one?” And still he indulged her.

“Both. Thinking of asking one of them out?” She took the jug of coffee and refilled his mug.

“Yeah, so that I could ruin it just when we're getting close by having to lie about who I really am? Just like I did with Lana?” Nonchalance, even fake, was not his strong suit. How could it be? With all the secrets he had to keep, he couldn’t even afford to fake it.

The look in his mom’s eyes took on something sad and heartbroken. He knew that she wanted the best for him, and that she wanted him to have as much of a normal life as he could. She didn’t deserve the snide comment.

“Clark, there is someone out there for you.” It would have been easier to believe her, if she at least believed what she had said herself. Still, she only wanted to be a good mom and encourage him and give him hope.

“Who? Mom, a girl would have to be crazy to get into a relationship with me.” The self-deprecating scoff that came out of his own mouth was too loud to his own ears.

His mom pursed her lips and shot him a disapproving look. “Well, I don’t know about any crazy girls in your general vicinity, but I do know of a very eccentric young man that may or may not have been institutionalized for insanity.” Her smile and the raised eyebrow just underlined the innuendo.

Clark went deep red. “Mom!” His exasperation didn’t seem to faze her even remotely. “What are you even saying?!” With every syllable he could hear himself getting louder and his voice getting higher. “You know that I can’t trust him! Mom, he was having me investigated, maybe still is!”

His mom stopped foaming the milk and turned to him, paused for a second and then covered his hand with her own while looking deeply into his eyes, her gaze heavy and meaningful. “Clark, honey, you spent years believing in him, when no one else would. You kept protecting him when everyone blamed him for his father’s mistakes. You even defended him from your own dad.” She let go of his hand and went on about the orders that were up, but still kept talking to him. “Why do you think you took it so hard, when you found out he had been investigating you? For someone to evoke such disappointment in you, it means that that someone has a very special place in your heart.” Another pregnant look in his eyes - he suddenly felt stripped bare in the middle of the Talon - and then she went back to her work.

Well, his trig homework was impossible to do now! Thanks, mom!

 

***

 

Alicia being out of Belle Reve didn’t really sit right with him. He couldn’t exactly put his finger on it, but the thought of her walking around freely made his skin crawl. Calling the sensations he had felt when she had walked up behind him in his loft _unpleasant_ would have been a major understatement. He’d felt scared and on edge, prepared for a fight. He wouldn’t ever hurt her - she was sick - but he wouldn’t let it get as far as last time.

Now, though, on the ice, with his hands in hers, he felt a little as if he could fly. Not literally, just as if a weight had been lifted off his shoulders. She knew his secret. And what was more important, she hadn’t said a word to anybody in a whole year. He could be himself around her, because she knew all about him and still accepted him. Sure, she had her own issues, what with being able to teleport and all that, the lead bracelet keeping her from dissolving out of one place and reappearing in another, but she was the one person still alive apart from his parents in front of whom he didn’t have to pretend to be something he wasn’t. Or rather pretend to not be something he definitely was. And maybe she was still crazy, but wasn’t that what he’d told his mom a girl willing to go out with him would have to be?

And just when he felt comfortable around her again, her crazy had to rear its ugly face again. California? What the ever loving- What was she talking about? And when he had refused her ridiculous suggestion to leave for the west coast he couldn’t help but wonder about that contrite look on her face. The way she’d left the rink made Clark fall into a bad mood, questioning everything that had happened in the past few hours. Hours during which he was happy and carefree. But maybe also care _less_?

Was she relapsing? Did he have to fear for his friends and family again? Was he making the same mistake again, trusting a certifiably mentally unstable person, just because he was afraid of spending eternity alone? He understood that letting Alicia back into his life, in whatever capacity, opened the door to her losing it again and by default to endangering all the people he loved.

But she, too, meant something to him. And didn’t it count at all that she’d kept her promise to never tell anybody his secret? Wasn’t that a testament in itself to how devoted she was to him? Wasn’t that by default calling for him to give her a second chance? And by doing that, to give himself a chance at love? Wasn’t he entitled to have that, to share a feeling of mutual understanding with somebody in an intimate way? With someone who knew him, in and out.

 

***

 

His mom’s steps on the stairs echoed in his ears as if somebody was letting bombs go off inside his head. The heavy footfall was worse than any pain he’d ever felt. He was short of running away to Metropolis again.

“Is dad still upset?” He didn’t know why he dared ask such a stupid question.

“What do you think?” The curt answer stung like a lightning bolt through his body.

And since he apparently was in a self-destructive mood at the moment: “How about you?”

“I'm upset. More than that, I'm disappointed.” That was a blow below the belt.

“I was on red kryptonite, mom.” It wasn’t his fault, it was as if she’d drugged him. He didn’t even know how many times he had to repeat that.

“My god, you ran off with a girl you barely know and got married.”

“It wasn't legal.” Sure, he was grasping at straws, but there really wasn’t anything else to reach for.

“That's not even the point!” His mom took a deep breath as if she wanted to rant on, but then visibly deflated. He stopped mimicking in- and exhaling. He didn’t have to around his parents. But he now understood what people meant when they said 'with bated breath’.

“Marriage is sacred, Clark. It's about two people who trust each other and are willing to go through life together, no matter how difficult it gets. I thought we had taught you that.” So much disappointment. Clark felt the tears gathering in his eyes as his mom went on.

“You're an amazing young man, Clark. You make life and death decisions every day. But then you turn around and you do this. Why did you do it?” Clark felt as if his insides were shredding themselves. This was the only form of pain he truly knew: having to see his parents this disappointed in him. Something he hoped to avoid forever. But they also deserved to know the truth behind his actions.

“Mom, there's a part of me that never feels freer than when I'm with Alicia. She makes me feel normal and special at the same time.” He couldn’t keep the tears at bay.

“I know how badly you want to be with somebody. I want that for you, too. I guess I just expected you to use better judgement.” His mom reached out and put her left hand on his shoulder. “There is someone who knows you inside and out. Someone you have trusted for years and who has never let you down.” She trailed off. But Clark knew exactly who she was talking about.

“Yeah, except when he had me investigated and betrayed my trust…” He sniffed, wiped a hand over his face to dry the tears he’d let fall.

He felt his mom’s hand underneath his chin, pulling his face up to look him in the eyes. “And how many times have you done the same to him? Clark, you were both keeping secrets from each other. Moreover, you’re keeping secrets from yourselves. Do you even know how many people think the two of you are dating?”

Clark’s head felt like a pressure cooker ready to explode. He was sure he was as red as his mom’s raspberry jam. “What the hell, mom?!” he exclaimed, recoiling from her touch and abruptly standing up, sending the bar stool crashing onto the floor.

His dad’s rapid footsteps made him look towards the stairs. “Everything alright down here?” Jonathan asked, looking from Clark to Martha and back again.

“Everything’s fine, honey. Clark just heard a truth he isn’t very comfortable with.” She sighed and turned to put water in the tea kettle.

Jonathan groaned, picked up the bar stool from the floor and took a seat on it himself, resting his elbows on the kitchen island and his head in his hands. Clark looked at his dad as if he’d grown a second head, which wouldn’t have been the most shocking thing he’d witness that day. Lex and him? Dating? What? How? Huh?!

“You told him about what Mrs. Henderson asked you the other day, didn’t you?” Clark had to strain his hearing to understand the muffled question his father obviously asked his mom, because he himself hadn’t run into Mrs. Henderson in more than a month.

His mom leaned on the counter next to the stove and crossed her arms over her chest. “Mrs. Henderson the other day, Amy at the Talon last week, Aaron from the grocery store last Saturday, Judge Ross a month ago, Nell before she moved to Metropolis… Do I need to keep going?”

Clark was speechless. All those people? All of them had asked his mom if Lex and he were dating? Nell?! She’d moved away almost two whole years ago. His eyes must have looked like they were about to pop out of his head.

“Mrs. Henderson didn’t even ask if the two of you were together. She asked if you are alright, if you’d been fighting because she wasn’t seeing you as often in town together, as she used to.”

The whistle of the tea kettle shook Clark out of his stupor. His dad, on the other hand, was still the epitome of despair, still with his head in his hands. “Dad! Why aren’t you saying something?!” Clark was practically screaming at his father.

Jonathan heaved a deep sigh that seemed to never want to end and raked his hands through his hair. “Son, why do you think I didn’t want him around you? Why do you think I was trying so vehemently to keep you away from him? I thought he was seducing you.” Now he ran a hand over his face and his five o’clock shadow. “Hell, I was convinced you two were together that one time he asked to stay with us when that good for nothing father of his had disowned him or whatever.” He gratefully accepted the offered tea from his wife and looked deeply into the mug he was holding with both hands, as if it would procure a different outcome to the discussion. But Jonathan knew a battle lost when he saw one. And this was the case.

“Dad, you can’t be serious!” Clark was hallucinating. That had to be it. His father believing his son in a relationship with Lex Luthor and said Lex Luthor still walking the Earth? Had he missed a turn somewhere and gotten himself through a wormhole into another dimension?!

Martha seemed to have found her voice again and spoke up: “Clark, your father and I have discussed the possibility a couple of times. He’s come around.” His father condoning a relationship between him and Lex Luthor? This had to be a fever dream or something.

“And with the latest development regarding Alicia, I think it is safe to say that maybe Lex Luthor is your best option for having an intimate relationship with someone.” Clark felt sorry for his mom having to scrape his brains of the kitchen walls and appliances. Because after that statement he was sure his head couldn’t have stayed intact. How he was still conscious, he didn’t know. But maybe, as with extreme situations, his body was made for withstanding extreme embarrassment, too.

He was rapidly blinking, turning his unbelieving stare from his mother to his father and back again. “I literally cannot believe what the two of you are saying right now! Have you forgotten what I told you about his locked room full of stuff regarding me and my abilities, and all those photographs in there?! It was like a shrine dedicated to everything I never told him and he couldn’t live without knowing about me!” Clark knew that he sounded hysterical, but he really was starting to fear that he had landed in an alternate universe.

“Think about it, Clark. What exactly does that tell us?” His mom leaned now with her elbows on the kitchen island opposite his dad, mug clasped in both hands, just like him and with a clear and hopeful look in her eyes.

“That he has serious issues and maybe Lionel wasn’t so wrong to have him institutionalized?!” He felt his grip on reality slipping. If his parents kept this up he’d pull a full drama queen and faint in the middle of the kitchen, hand on his forehead and all.

“That, too.” Another heavy sigh from Jonathan. “But it also tells us that he cares so much about you that he couldn’t bear the thought of you keeping things from him.” Clark opened his mouth, but snapped it shut with an audible click of his teeth when his dad just gestured for him to wait a second. “He knows he hit you with his car, he suspects your super speed with how often you’ve just up and vanished from his office and how you seem to be always in the right place at the right time. He has seen you catch a bullet for him with your bare hand.” When Clark wanted to protest that Lex hadn’t actually seen that, his dad gave him a look and he just shut up. Right, the smashed bullets suspended from the ceiling in the Clark temple at the mansion. He’d almost forgotten.  
  
Jonathan went on: “We know that he at least suspects something. And he has never ever uttered anything to anyone. And that we can be sure of, because if he had, then this place would have been crawling with scientist and private investigators and whatnot. And you’d probably be locked up in a lab with kryptonite chains around you, because we also know that he has seen how you react to the meteor rock.” He paused, took a sip from his cooling tea. “This is Lex Luthor we’re talking about here. If anyone has the means for something like that, then it’s him.”

His mom picked up where his dad had left off: “Lex is one of the most intelligent people we know. And we shouldn’t underestimate him. We know that he can come to all the necessary conclusions all by himself.” She, too, took a sip from her tea. And Clark still couldn’t utter a single syllable. Yet, he felt his body relax and realized he had picked up his habit of miming breathing again. So, no more bated breath.

“I, for one, am finally willing to give him the benefit of the doubt, son.” Jonathan said. And Clark, yet again, couldn’t really believe his ears. But he found something inside himself settling at that statement. His dad accepting Lex, in whatever capacity, was one of the very few things he ever really wanted.

“We know what he means to you.” His mom’s soft voice triggered something in him that made tears pool in his eyes again. “You wouldn’t have reacted that strongly to the room if it wasn’t the case. We all saw it. Some accepted it before others” - a meaningful look was thrown in Jonathan’s direction, who turned slightly red in the cheeks and looked somewhat abashed - “but we know what you two feel for each other is true and pure. And Lex is the best friend you have ever had.” She took Jonathan’s now empty tea mug and went to put both, his and her own, in the sink. Then she turned around again to look Clark in the eye for the millionth time in the past moments. “I think you need to go and talk to him.”

Clark gulped and took a deep breath he didn’t actually need. Still, it felt cleansing and refreshing. With all those glaring truths thrown at him by the people he least expected them from, he couldn’t help but let it all sink in. As if on a screen his mind provided memories: of shocked blue eyes seconds before disaster, a lifeless pale body in a tin can underwater, soft but cold lips underneath his own; a nagging feeling of jealousy at a wedding in the midst of the blazing summer heat; a gaping hole in his chest when he’d learnt of a plane crash, and then months later the elevation and pure bliss at the sight of a scorched face; the unmistakable scent of sandal wood and musk mallow of a hug after having a gun pointed at him in order to make sure it is his true self.  When he came out of his reverie he looked at his dad who could just nod at him. And then Clark let out a body wrecking sob and collapsed to the floor crying.

 

***

 

 He had needed a whole day before he finally found himself at the doors to the study at Lex’s mansion. The realization had hit him hard and the flood of emotions had taken a toll on his body like no physical activity ever had. He had slept for 14 hours straight and when he had woken up, still feeling drained and groggy, he knew that he had to settle this.

“Hey Lex.” His voice was so weak and low, he didn’t really recognize it himself.

Lex’s stare was full of concern. He knew instantly that something wasn’t right. As he got up to stand in front of his friend, he questioningly looked at him. “Clark?” And in that one word was more feeling and worry than Clark had ever witnessed in anyone before. Maybe his parents were right after all. Without thought he stepped closer to Lex and put his arms around him, his nose burrowing where Lex’s throat met his shoulder. And without questioning Lex accepted the embrace, sighed and molded his body further against Clark’s, his arms encircling the taller farm boy.

“We need to talk.” It was a simple statement, but one that held so much promise of honesty that Lex had to remove himself from Clark’s embrace just to look into his eyes. The profound sincerity he found in them made Lex smile. A genuine smile laden with affection. And Clark relaxed in the hug. After a while they parted.

“Let me call in some snacks and drinks, then we can talk. Any preference?” Lex asked.

“I could really go for some hot chocolate right now. And maybe a pastrami sandwich.” The bashful smile on Clarks face made Lex just that much giddier.

 

***

 

It had taken a total of seven hours to finish talking. Lex had gone through the full spectrum of human emotion: anger at being lied to, fury at the distrust directed at him, disappointment that Clark had waited so long to tell him, sadness that he apparently didn’t mean as much to Clark as Clark meant to him.

At that Clark had again broken down, started crying, sobbing uncontrollably and babbling about how Lex had always been the one person he was truly in love with but having suppressed those feelings so much that he never let himself indulge in them. He told him about how his parents were always concerned about his safety and how people who had found out only hurt him and his family. How he’d told Pete, but his friend couldn’t handle the responsibility of keeping his secrets and had left him. How he was always afraid that Lex would have left, too, if he had known the whole truth about who Clark Kent really was. 

After some more talking, and assuring and reassuring that nobody would leave, that they trusted each other, that Clark was in this till the end and that was why he’d also told Lex what his only weakness was, that Lex would keep Clark safe no matter the cost, there seemed to be no more words left in the world to be said between them. The resignation in Lex’s eyes had left the moment Clark had sobbingly confessed his feelings. And ultimately he settled on gratefulness for Clark’s trust and elation at his feelings being returned.

At four in the morning, when everything was said and done, they sat on the couch by the slowly dying fire, with Clark’s head on Lex’s lap and Lex’s fingers raking through Clark’s hair. Enjoying each other’s company in silence, after hours and hours of talking, screaming, shouting and crying, Clark found himself almost falling asleep. Slowly, he pushed himself up and off of Lex’s lap.

“I better get going.” He said and bashfully looked and Lex, who sent him but a warm smile and a minute nod. The light from the fire behind him made him look at ease, soft and warm, and Clark, all of a sudden, really didn’t want to leave.

But he knew he had to. He didn’t want to risk his dad’s miraculous acceptance of Lex and even his condoning an eventual relationship between the young billionaire and his still underage son by giving off a false impression if he’d stay the night. So they both got up slowly and Lex walked him to the door.

“You sure you don’t want to stay the night. You know the guest room is made up.” Lex’s voice was raw from the heated discussions with higher than pleasant decibels straining his voice box.

Clark felt his face flush and looked down at his feet. “It’ll only take me like a second to get home. Plus I really don’t want to jeopardize my dad’s newfound affection towards you.” He dared to look up into Lex’s smirking face, blushed even deeper and grinned his boyish grin to mask his embarrassment. “Also, I think we should at least go on a date first, before I spend the night.” Where he found the courage underneath all the bashfulness to say that, he didn’t know.

“Deal.” Lex said. “But”, he paused to get Clark’s attention, “my treat, no discussion. And I am choosing the place. If I happen to pick something fancier, you wear what I send you, also no discussion. Understood?” He had probably been trying to go for a stern voice, but Clark was practically vibrating with elation, so that it had missed its purpose by a mile. But Lex couldn’t care less at the look of Clark’s beaming smile. 

“Deal.” Clark exclaimed a little too loudly, leaned in to plant a kiss on Lex’s right cheek and dashed off in an instant, leaving behind a whispering whoosh of air and the clicking sound of the gravel he managed to disrupt with his Mach 3 velocity.


End file.
